Deconstructing Wikipedia continued

Wikipedia.com was launched on January 15, 2001; its first article was on the letter U. Sanger soon realized there was nothing silly about the idea; he began to promote it with near-missionary zeal. He also set out several guiding principles: that it should maintain a neutral point of view; that contributors should be allowed to make mistakes and learn by doing; and that the goal of each edit was not perfection, but improvement.

Somehow the idea caught on. In the first month, Wikipedia had 1,000 articles. In one year, it would have 20,000 articles. In five years, it would become the most comprehensive encyclopedia in history.

The Piranha Effect

Since ancient times, encyclopedists have strived to achieve three essential qualities: breadth, depth, and authority. As Pliny the Elder wrote in his groundbreaking Naturalis Historia:

“It is a difficult task to give an air of novelty to old themes, authority to new ones, luster to well-worn topics, light to the obscure, charm to the boring, credit to the dubious, nature to all, and all that is her own to nature. Hence, however incomplete our success, the scope of our undertaking is truly beautiful and glorious.”

Over the centuries, as encyclopedias grew longer, these conflicting imperatives generated endless headaches. More entries implied more pages, more authors, more organization, more indexing, more expense, and more errors.

Even the most successful encyclopedias struggled with the inherent limitations of the printed page. The 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1974, comprised 30 volumes and weighed 143 pounds. Moving it from one shelf to another was a logistical challenge, never mind keeping it up to date.

The advent of digital publishing was a giant boon to the field. Microsoft launched Encarta (essentially repackaging Funk & Wagnalls) in 1993. The Britannica released its first CD-ROM the next year. Despite the advantages of the digital format, however, encyclopedias remained expensive. Writers, editors, artists and other contributors had to be paid, not to mention the expense of marketing and advertising.

Wikipedia turned the traditional model inside out. Instead of teams of professionals, it relied on a vast army of anonymous, unpaid volunteers. Why did this work? Or, to steal a line from author Andrew Lih, how did a bunch of nobodies create the world’s greatest encyclopedia?

The answer is simple: writing an encyclopedia is a thrilling, even addictive, intellectual enterprise. Sanger talks about the “pure joy of proving to the world that you know something by writing it down and having it immediately available to others, who then affirm your own knowledge by adding to it.”

The first Wikipedians had a free hand to recreate the world in their own image. From quantum mechanics to string quartets to Simpsons characters, almost no subject was off limits. In the beginning, contributors were encouraged to add entries that were rough or minimal just to move the project along. For example, the original entry for owl, created in February 2002, read in its misspelled entirety:

In the Harry Potter books, an owl was a (possibly magical) bird which deliverd letters and small packages. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.

Three weeks later, another contributor added a few lines:

An owl is any of several species of nocturnal, predatory birds. They hunt small mammals and birds. Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom and with the goddess Athena. In the Harry Potter books, owls deliver letters and small packages for wizards. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.

A few months later, another contributor reworked the entry:

Owls (Order Strigiformes) are a group of nocturnal, birds of prey. They hunt small mammals and other birds. Owls have large front facing eyes and ears, a hawk-like beak and a conspicuous circle of feathers around each eye. Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom and with the goddess Athena. In the Harry Potter books, owls deliver letters and small packages for wizards. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.